


Inktober 2018

by Voidcoffee



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Inktober, Inktober 2018, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 20:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voidcoffee/pseuds/Voidcoffee
Summary: Three Critical Role shorts I wrote inspired by various Inktober prompts. The Caduceus Clay/Molly ones are more experimental, focussing more on descriptions - some things were written for aesthetic value, not because of headcanons.





	1. Tranquil

The sound of a kettle rung through the room. Steam rose up to the air, clouding the windows and sheltering the goings on of the house from the rest of the world. A skinny hand with dirty fingernails reached out for the emerald tea towels. It gripped it gently, the fabric twirling around it. The ritual was like a dance: graceful and practised daily. The tea towel dipped the kettle, its hair flowing into a chipped teacup. The smell of garden balsam and wilting roses spread, coating the hand with its sweetness. The smell coiled up around the arm, and the shoulder, and the neck and then finally it wrapped itself around the face like a warm blanket.

 

The face was angular. Dark pink eyes peered out from underneath pastel pink hair. The only things strong enough to stand up against the current of the waves, were the braids. In the middle of his face: a cow-like nose. On top of a messy beard rested chapped lips that would soon have to introduce the creature as Caduceus Clay.

 

He flashed a quick smile at the cup, as if to thank it for its smell. He wove his finger through the cup’s ear and lifted it. He cupped his other hand underneath it. As he walked, drops of tea would escape through the chipped edge, staining the stone floor. As he left the building, he knew the scent would linger in the room and his mind for weeks.

 

He opened the old, wooden door and sunlight punched him in the face. He chuckled. The grass tickled under his feet, the drying mud covered his toes. As he walked, a small beetle swung down from his fringe and landed on his shoulder. He paid it no mind. Nor did he pay it any mind when the beetle fell and a spider found its dinner. Nature was like that: violent, beautiful chaos. He walked past the cracked tombstones, the snapped crosses and other decaying gravemarks to his destination: his meditation spot.

 

His meditation spot sat close to the edge of the perimeter. From his little haven, he could spot the disease that ate the forest around him. Somehow, it was always cool there. An ancient weeping willow dried up the sun’s tears, providing shade. Turquoise water ran down a rock and into a small pond, morphing the land over time. Small fish ate the even smaller bugs that skipped along the water surface. The whole scene was a perfect representation of the world, according to Caduceus. He felt at peace there.

 

He sat down the cup on a river rock, his long sleeve being tugged at by the current. Then, he sat himself down. He crossed his legs and let his muscles relax. His arms he draped over his knees. Sitting down, he was even smaller than he was standing up. He remembered his sister, his mother, his family. He bowed forward and took a sip from the tea. While the smell was sweet, the taste was painfully bitter. He could feel it cling to the back of his tongue, holding on for dear life. He relaxed, let his head rest forward and closed his eyes.

 

His world went dark. It stayed quiet for a while. Then, the wind roared. A tree screamed and fell. A fox stopped dead in its tracks and turned around. A bird sang the song of fear. Ants scattered in blind panic. It was nothing unusual. Only when he filtered it out did he discover something new. New sounds, new senses. He could feel a disturbance: something new to these woods. He could feel the earth trembling gently under his feet. The rhythm of walking. The rhythm of talking. Voices. People.

 

He opened his eyes. Everything was tranquil. The tree’s branched swayed gently in the breeze. The stream hummed the same song it had for millenia. Caduceus felt the cup. Cold. He let the last of the tea flow over his lips. Waste wasn’t a thing nature knew, so neither did he. He unfolded his long limbs from underneath him with a groan. An iridescent beetle abandoned his knee and went on a quest for a new place to sit. Before he left, he bowed and thanked the spot for allowing him to be there. The flowers spread their scent and he knew it was their way of accepting his grace.

 

He had no idea that soon, he would receive his first visitors in years, that he would have to leave the pond, the tree and the flowers behind him. He had no idea that soon, his life would change forever by the group known as The Mighty Nein.

 


	2. Angular

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caduceus and Mollymauk - 2 angles of the same person.

His face was angular. Lines drawn like mountain ridges and valleys. A pink waterfall streamed down the side of his face. The waves curled and twisted, occasionally carrying leaves or small twigs in their grasp. The other side was a beach covered in pink grains of sand. It looked harsh, but felt soft when you dragged your hands through it. His face was like a field of gentle, spring grass. New, fresh, young, but also eternal. The tiny blades swayed in the breeze. Two pools of sparkling pink water sat on both sides of the largest, widest mountain range. They looked. They saw. They understood. They shifted around as water does. Above them, two eyebrows, soft like moss. The mountain range in the middle of his face smelled, collected scents and shared them with his brain. A soft pink line was drawn from his nose to his lips. His lips were the entrance to the cavern of his body. They were chapped, like rocks all set in two softly curving lines. Sometimes they moved and a low, soft rumbling would sound. Below them, longer pink hairs escaped the field of green, growing from the sides of his face to his chin. On the sides of his face were two pointed ears. They were covered in tiny green hairs, sprouting long pink ones at the tips. If he was happy, they moved up. If he was sad, they moved down. If he was meditating, they were straight. One of them carried a spiraling piece of wood inside of it. He was happy with this.

 

His broken white shirt sat tight around his neck and chest. Dark grey lines curled around his shoulders and neck. Over his right arm draped a see-through webbing. It fell around him like icy water, even mimicking its color. Turquoise armor protected his chest, shoulder and forearm. In the light, it shimmered like a beetle’s shield, revealing a pink surprise, like a cherry blossom tree in the middle of an evergreen forest. Brown, braided leather straps kept it all together. Some of them carried bright beads, adding color to the sea of brown. His trousers were a darker turquoise, loose around his legs. Spirals dotted the fabric. He walked on leather boots with old wooden trims, carrying splotches of pink moss. He walked with a large staff made from light wood, holding a purple crystal above its head.

 

The crystal carried a soul. It had done for some time now. The soul had a pointy, purple face with prying red eyes drawing all the attention to them. His short wavy hair draped around their face, smelling pleasantly of lavender. Two horns protruded from the top of his head, curling down, carrying gold and silver bangles and rings. The sun and the moon. Short, pointed ears stuck out from the sides of his face. Between them, feathers of a peacock crawled up, clinging on. A pyramid divided the back of his neck, carrying an eye in its midst. 

 

Light purple scars carved a path down to his stomach. He wore a loose, off-white shirt, open down to almost obscene proportions. His red coat was impossible to describe. Intricate patterns were sown all over it. Lines, circles, triangles, arrows, teardrops, suns, moons. All of them in the brightest colors, as colorful as the man himself. He carried two swords at his sides, shimmering in the dull light from within the crystal. On his pants, purple, blue and indigo danced around each other. His leather boots reached up to above his knees, like ivy on a tree. Behind him, his tail swished, splitting the air in two.

 

Inside the crystal, he waited. He watched. He and the man were one and the same, in a way. Connected. Two angles of the same soul. He could see his friends, but could not say a word. All he could do was give the other man feelings, hunches. This was his way to help his friends. The annoying one, the silent one, the happy one, the sneaky one, the charismatic one, and the clever one. Him, he liked him. He couldn’t. He had a code - don’t like people who don’t like themselves. And yet… 

 

He could feel the same things as the other man. He could feel the ground under his feet. He could smell the scents in his world. He could hear the voices around him. Sometimes he’d talk to the man. Sometimes just for fun, other time to advise him. He had told him Gustav’s story, but told him to keep quiet. The others could not know he was here. They might try to get him back, and lose him forever in the process.

 

He watched from within the crystal, watched the world unfold and watched the Mighty Nein leave every town better than they found it.


	3. Scorched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A take on Caleb's backstory, more specifically the night he killed his parents under the watching eye of Trent Ikithon.

Caleb’s feet sloshed in the muddy dirt. The damp smell combined with the electricity of an upcoming storm created an atmosphere of anxiety. Wet grass tangled around his ankles. He felt surprisingly calm, even as he went through what he had to do. Right now, his companions were moving an old horse cart in front of the house’s door. He could hear the old wheels creak as it bumped over rocks. He could see them whispering, though the wind erased the words before they could get to him. His coat and hair clung to his body. Even in the rain, he could feel fire burning within him. 

 

Sometimes, it got so bad it hurt. The fire would start in his stomach, like a campfire in a rainforest. Then, it would rise and rise up through his throat and into his face. His cheeks would flush. Sweat would form on his forehead, meandering down in a little stream. Dizziness would soon follow, though he had that under control now. He had a lot under control now, thanks to his teacher. The fire would run laps around his brain, before fluttering down. It spread to his hips and legs and feet. It would sting as the ground underneath him heated up. As he curled his toes, the fire was already rising again. It would split now. It coiled through the veins in his arms, and wouldn’t stop until it reached his fingertips. There, things changed. It was always different. Sometimes, a small flicker would appear, barely enough to light the darkness. Other times, it’d burst, giving the sensation of fingertips splitting open. Those times Caleb hated the most. Trent had taught him how to decide what would happen, and tonight? Tonight would be a spectacle. 

 

The sound of wood grinding against stone shook him from his thoughts. The cart stood in front of the door now, heavy and impossible to move from within the building. Trent walked up to him, coat stained with mud and immorality. He nodded, and Caleb shifted. He looked upon the house he knew so well. The outside: weathered bricks, square windows, wooden beams, dark brown roof tiles, chimneys casting out a miasma of smoke. The inside: everything he’d known his entire life. His room, his books, his cat….and his parents. Yet, somehow, right now, it all didn’t matter. He had to do this. He had to prove to the others he was capable. He’d seen people in pain before. This would be nothing new.

 

Caleb let the fire run through his veins. The tips of his fingers sparked, momentarily becoming one with the stars. The sparks grew into flames. Flames grew into an inferno. The inferno grasped at the air, tugged at the sky. It crawled and ran towards the house. Caleb let it. The wooden beams caught fire first, crackling like a fireplace. The windows burst with a sharp ring. Lastly, the bricks cracked and fire ran through it like lightning. From underneath the deafening roar, Caleb could hear other sounds. He heard his cat wail loudly. He heard it bump into furniture in a desperate attempt to escape. Most of all, he heard his parents scream. He heard them beg for their lives. He heard them cry and howl and writhe as the fire burned their skin. 

 

It was then he realised what he had done. As fire danced in his eyes, his limbs were petrified. Tears distorted the images. He could feel his cheeks flush, but not with fire. With shame, anger, sadness, but most of all: guilt. His spirit tugged at his body, begging it to run. It did. His feet caused tsunamis and earthquakes as he sprinted across the grassy path. He ran until his lungs burned as bad as his fingertips. Then, he fell down. He balled his fists and thumped on the ground. Tears and rain mixed until they were indistinguishable. He hoped the rain would extinguish the fire in his soul. He hoped it would wash him away until he too was nothing more than a memory. It did neither. All it did was shake his body and freeze his bones. He wailed, screamed, begged, cried, howled and writhed until he could no more. Everything faded to black as the nighttime world took control of his mind.

 

He woke up the next morning with a snake coiled in the pit of his stomach. He was alone, and happy about it. Thoughts crossed his mind like vultures in a clear desert sky. He would walk. He would walk until he dug a trench all around the world. If he found somewhere to get punished for his crimes, all the better. Healing didn’t exist for him. He couldn’t heal from this, didn’t allow himself to. He stood up and left. His life was different now. In the daytime, he walked. In the night time, he tried to sleep.

 

In his dreams, nothing but the screams of his parents and him: the damned souls he’d cast into oblivion.


End file.
